About the
Battle of Midway Roundtable

(Updated 15 February 2013)

Introduction

For a 15-year period from 1997 to the
beginning of 2012, the Battle of Midway Roundtable was an interactive
international association of those having a strong interest in the battle that
changed the course of World War II in the Pacific as well as all world history
that was to follow. Our roster included military personnel, military
veterans, family members of veterans, authors and historians, researchers,
students, aviation enthusiasts, ship and aircraft hobbyists, and numerous others
for whom the Battle of Midway has a special meaning. Our membership
extended to 20 countries around the world and included men and women of all ages
and from a wide variety of backgrounds.

The BOMRT was unique among Internet history
forums, for its active participants included many actual veterans of the Battle
of Midway itself. Among them were pilots and aircrewmen, sailors from the
various ships, Marines who served on the atoll, and signal intelligence
specialists who helped make the American victory possible. For a complete
list of our Midway veteran members, click the
BOMRT Vets List link on
our home page.

History

The BOMRT was started rather unintentionally.
In 1990 William H. Price, a State Department employee in Washington, made a
chance acquaintance with retired Navy Captain Howard P. Ady, Jr., who had been
the first to spot the enemy carriers as the Battle of Midway began on 4 June
1942. Price then commenced an extended e-mail exchange with Ady, which
soon attracted the interest of other Midway veterans. The result was a
sort of e-mail circular that continued among Price, Ady, and a few others for
the next several years. In 1997 the circular was mentioned on a
comprehensive Battle of Midway web site, and soon visitors to the site started
asking Price to include them in his distribution. He began forwarding the
veterans’ messages to everyone who wanted them, and the Battle of Midway
Roundtable was born.

For its first six years the Roundtable
continued to function via direct daily forwarding of e-mail. A great many
discussions on all aspects of the Battle of Midway and related topics were
carried on by that method, usually with the participation of our Midway
veterans. By early 2004 over 8000 messages had been originated and
forwarded to hundreds of recipients, but by then it was obvious that operating
the Roundtable by forwarding individual e-mail messages could not continue with
a constantly increasing membership. Thus in 2004 the BOMRT transitioned to
a periodic newsletter, “The Roundtable Forum,” which published 338 new issues
over the next seven years, all of which can be found
here.

Today, with far fewer surviving and
participating Midway vets, the Roundtable is sustained primarily through its
archives on this web site. E-mail contact continues to be welcome, and all inquiries will be
answered.